How the ‘poisonous tide’ of disinformation stokes division and sows despair
A deepfake image from the fake documentary Olympics Has Fallen, produced by Russia-affiliated influence actor Storm-1679, which advanced pro-Kremlin disinformation and used the image and likeness of Tom Cruise, who did not participate in any such documentary. Inevitably, malign networks will amplify those free-speech concerns, she says.It is not just Russia deploying information attacks. The UK government defines misinformation as the inadvertent spread of false information, while disinformation is the deliberate creation and spread of falsehoods to create harm or disruption.
- ▪A deepfake image from the fake documentary Olympics Has Fallen, produced by Russia-affiliated influence actor Storm-1679, which advanced pro-Kremlin disinformation and used the image and likeness of Tom Cruise, who did not participate in an
- ▪Inevitably, malign networks will amplify those free-speech concerns, she says.It is not just Russia deploying information attacks.
- ▪The UK government defines misinformation as the inadvertent spread of false information, while disinformation is the deliberate creation and spread of falsehoods to create harm or disruption.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — World |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/23/how-the-poisonous-tide-of-disinformation-stokes-division-and-sows-despair |
| Publication time | Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:24:39 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-23T19:29:30.764Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-23T19:29:30.764Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | tUZKg6a633cu · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
A deepfake image from the fake documentary Olympics Has Fallen, produced by Russia-affiliated influence actor Storm-1679, which advanced pro-Kremlin disinformation and used the image and likeness of Tom Cruise, who did not participate in any such documentary. Photograph: Storm-1679/Microsoft Threat Analysis CenterView image in fullscreenA deepfake image from the fake documentary Olympics Has Fallen, produced by Russia-affiliated influence actor Storm-1679, which advanced pro-Kremlin disinformation and used the image and likeness of Tom Cruise, who did not participate in any such documentary.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — World.
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